Eternal Like the Burn of the Ocean
by DarkPoisonousLove
Summary: Valtor isn't the same selfish man who let himself hurt Griffin and can never have enough of anything. All he wants is a peaceful life with the love of his life. Can he ever have that, though, as long as his mothers are around, threatening his self confidence and the woman he loves? Part 3 of "Love Can Be a Trap That Sets You Free".


**A/N: ****This takes place at least two years after part 2 and is the last part (that I have currently) chronologically. I will be adding more parts that are set between this one and the second one but I felt the previous part segued well into this one which is why this had to come as part 3.**

Valtor took a deep breath, feeling the water caressing his skin as compelled by Griffin's magic. His own powers were keeping it warm, making it the perfect environment for them to rest in after their hard mission. Their combined efforts turned it into the ideal tool to help their tense muscles relax in the warm tenderness around them that he'd never suspected could be created by his Dragon Fire and soothe their wounds as manipulated by the healing spell Griffin had chosen from her growing reserve.

It had been one of the first things she'd focused her attention on and he'd been afraid that it was because he'd hurt her so viciously when he'd changed the essence of her being, but then he'd realized that she was doing it for her own conscience. He'd gotten hurt by his mothers again after a failed mission and she'd offered her help, the smile on her face big and warm when she'd used her newly acquired skills to nurse his injuries. She'd been happy to use her powers to heal and not destroy and he'd been happy that he'd given her the opportunity to choose what to be now that she was free of both the ocean and him. And she'd repaid him by taking care of him and caring for him.

He could feel the water laced with her magic washing away the scars of the battle little by little from his skin just like it always did. He didn't have a single new scar ever since she'd started dabbling in healing magic, and even the rage of his mothers couldn't leave permanent marks on him anymore. Sure, they hurt him to their hearts'–or rather lack of thereof–content and their punishments seemed to have turned more vicious now that they knew the consequences wouldn't last but Griffin's spells not only removed the traces of the torture he'd been subjected to. They seemed to remove the pain, too, the water carrying it away in its waves as if it had never been there. The only thing she couldn't fix were the old scars that had already healed, for she claimed the pain was trapped under the skin and deep into his being where her magic couldn't reach it, but he was grateful for everything she was doing for him anyway.

They had found a lake far enough from any people and from their home base to provide them with the privacy they needed for their recreational practices. A place where he was safe to just get naked and walk into the water, leaving himself in her gentle hands. As a rule, he wasn't a big fan of water, considering the source of his powers but he trusted her enough to allow her to hold him above the surface, knowing he was safe from drowning in her embrace, for she wasn't the siren he'd first met anymore. She was a human like him now, and yet, not quite as she could control the element that was his weakness, but he knew she'd never use it against him. She was his partner. She was his lover.

He laid his head on her shoulder, letting his muscles slacken completely since he wouldn't need them to keep him afloat. Her arms were wrapped around his torso to keep him close to her as she couldn't sink and he was free to just enjoy the feeling of her skin pressed against his back as the water worked its magic of cleansing them from the entire experience of the battle they'd just participated in, taking away the strain and hurt of it. He closed his eyes and sighed blissfully.

"Aren't you tired of this?" Griffin's voice was a little too loud and disturbed his peace but it was just because she was talking right next to his ear. The current position didn't allow for much else and he didn't want her pulling away so he'd find a way to make do.

He loved listening to her lulling voice now that there was no danger of him falling under her spell, or rather, falling even more under her spell because she had him. She'd had him from the first moment he'd seen her, but now that she was less magic and more human, and more tender than anyone he'd ever met, he couldn't help but sink into the love she was offering so readily even after his mistake to try to force her to be his.

"I don't think it's possible for me to get tired of the quiet moments like this one," he murmured as he turned his head towards her neck, his lips brushing against her skin as they moved and he felt the shiver running through her. Her neck was sensitive and he was amazed she trusted him to be so close to it with his teeth after she'd had to spend hours healing the scar of his mark and enjoyed the caresses of his lips over the newly generated skin. He loved that, loved to see her react to the love that she wasn't used to getting either. It reassured him that he was just as good at giving as she was and he hoped that could make up for what he'd tried to take from her, knowingly and not so much.

Her arms shifted as if she wanted to bring a hand to his face to stroke it, but she didn't release her hold on him, knowing it had the potential of setting panic in his vulnerable being. Water was her domain and he was in the very real danger of drowning if she let go of him. So she made sure to hold him at all times and it was the most secure he'd ever felt, knowing that he was in the arms of someone who truly cared for him. In the arms of someone who had all the reasons to hate him, and yet, she never had. She loved him and he trusted her.

"I mean, aren't you tired of doing your mothers' dirty work and getting punished by them whenever the smallest thing goes sideways?" she spoke again, her voice quieter this time but it was the question that really disturbed him, and it seemed to do the same to the water as he couldn't feel its soothing effect on him anymore, but that could be caused by the tension that crept back into his muscles.

His eyes snapped open and he could now feel the stiffness of her body that was starting to infect him too. "You think I had a say in all of this, that I had a choice?" he asked, bitterness surfacing instantly, plummeting into him with the force of a tsunami as if in an attempt to pull him out of her hold on him. "This is what my mothers want," he said, trying to rein in his voice and not snap at her. It wasn't her fault, for she had just as much control as he did, and that was none. His mothers held the reins and controlled them like they were some unruly animals that deserved nothing but to be pushed past their limits and punished when they stumbled in their exhaustion. And how could he want that? How could he want to be treated like less than human, especially when she was there and treated him like a god?

"And what do you want?" Griffin asked, catching him off guard and he had to grab at her arms to make sure he hadn't fallen into the water and it was the lack of oxygen that was making him hallucinate. "What is your heart's desire?" Griffin murmured in his ear before she brushed her lips against his cheek, tracing half-kisses over the skin she could reach without moving too much and taking him out of the state of mind she was deliberately seducing him into. One of her hands started drawing patterns in the flesh of his abdomen, too, pointing his whole attention to her and what she was doing to him as well as towards pleasing her so that she wouldn't stop. She couldn't tell what he really wanted without her siren powers but she certainly hadn't forgotten how to tempt.

"I want freedom," he said as he allowed her to drag him into the fantasy of the life he wanted, even if he knew he could never have it. "I want to be with you somewhere so far away from them that we can't even remember they exist," he said trying to fight the wishful thinking, for it would be too painful when he had to wake up from his dreams, but his heart didn't let him. Or it may have been the feeling of her caresses that had him imagining a peaceful life for the two of them, with a house where they could wake up however late they wanted and he could drink his coffee while she had her tea in comfortable silence or they could spend all day in bed, laughing and talking, and kissing, and perhaps doing some more. Griffin could have her garden–growing plants seemed to be her thing and she loved the feeling of mud on her skin–and he could do historical research and be an independent archaeologist, hunting down artifacts lost for thousands of years. They could watch movies or go out to dinner dates in the evenings and fall asleep in each other's arms after a long exhausting day.

"Then let's leave," Griffin said, her tone carrying the roar of the ocean during a storm and it made him turn around quickly in her arms, almost forgetting that he had to hold on to her because he couldn't reach the bottom of the lake as far inside it as they were, and clap a hand over her mouth, listening carefully as he half expected the ground to freeze as the leaves broke off the branches and whirled around, carried by the wind that was only speeding up, while the trees morphed into monsters and their roots pulled him out of Griffin's grasp and underwater to drown him for the lack of loyalty.

"We can't," he hissed, still on edge even if it seemed like his mothers hadn't heard the blasphemy that had left her mouth. They could be lulling them into a false sense of security, waiting to strike when it would hurt most, which meant that he might never have a moment's peace again. He'd known it had been dangerous to let himself get sucked into the fantasy of a life where he was free of them and now it was too late to stop her from challenging them to take away from him what he already had, to pull her out of his embrace and find a way to drown her even though she could breathe underwater. "I'm not strong enough to oppose them," he shook his head regretfully as his hand fell away from her mouth since all of his energy had drained now. Or perhaps it was because he was hoping she could tell him something that would cure his mind from the memories surfacing in it, memories of the abuse he'd been subjected to because he hadn't been good enough and because he'd found someone who thought he was, contradicting their opinion.

His mothers hated Griffin with a burning passion, for she had shown him there was more than what they had led him to believe, that he was more than they'd made him feel like. She hadn't cared for their rules and had refused to follow their agenda even after they'd demonstrated why they were so infamous and widely feared. They'd only spared her because she was willing to follow him into fire–and she was terrified of it–and her loyalty to him was useful to them as she was watching his back, making battles safer for him with her partnership, even resorting to killing people if they threatened him although she still struggled with the souls on her conscience, and missions more productive with her strategies.

It'd turned out she was very useful with her resourcefulness and knowledge on guarding powerful artifacts and that had become the one thing granting her life. That and the fact that he was still obeying their orders, so he couldn't let her compelling sense of rebellion take over him. He couldn't risk losing her–not even for the chance to be free with her–when she was his treasure, the only thing he wanted. He couldn't let his greed take her away.

"Maybe not," Griffin said, making his heart sink to hear her confirm the sentiment even when he knew it to be true and he had to be glad that she was listening to common sense and not to her idealism. He may have freed her but he was still trapped and as long as she loved him, she was bound to suffer his fate too. And it was selfish of him to want her to stay in his cage as well, but he was only feeling free when she was with him. She made him want to wake up in the morning so that he could gaze in her golden eyes that were much more breathtaking than the dawn. "But I know we can do it together," she said as she cupped his face and prompted him to look at her, her other arm under his own, holding on to him even when he was grasping at her shoulders with both of his hands, for she'd promised she wouldn't let him drown. Not in water, and not in sorrow or pain.

He raised a hand to run through her hair, careful not to tear a hair away now that they got wet from water and tangled together, trying to ground himself when the emotions were tossing him in all directions in their roaring sea. "Aren't you scared of them?" he whispered, his own voice cowering and running away in his attempt to hide from the memories flooding his mind.

She'd opposed them to stop them from hurting him even after he'd told her to never do that. There was no need to since she could heal what they damaged later, and he was afraid for her own well-being because they couldn't get rid of him but nothing was stopping them from taking her apart whenever the whim struck. She'd still stood up for him–like no one else in his life had ever done–and they'd taken her in his place. Belladonna's frost had reached deep into her soul, finding her water essence and starting to freeze her slowly from the very core of her being out.

He'd managed to save her only because his mother had let go–he still couldn't forget the absolute terror that had shaken him profoundly as Griffin's frozen body had just barely fallen into his open arms instead of on the floor which would have undoubtedly had her shatter in pieces in front of his eyes–and he had the Dragon Fire. He'd had to use it to unfreeze her even despite the knowledge of how much she feared it, and he'd been trembling along with her from the terror that was now engraved in both their hearts when she'd hugged him with her arms still cold as death. They'd almost managed to make her hate water, the element she was made of. She could only stand it if it was warmed up by his magic now, and for the first time he felt like the heat of his Dragon Fire wasn't enough because he couldn't melt the chilling memories out of her head to help her relax.

"Of course, I'm scared," Griffin said, her hand falling from his face and over his heart. "I'm terrified," she whispered, tears filling her eyes and she looked down as if to gather strength from the knowledge that she could touch his heart whenever she wanted. He would always allow her to touch every part of him, especially when it helped her calm down. "But that's exactly why we have to leave," she said as she looked at him again, her eyes almost aflame with the determination that filled them and the reflection of it in her tears only doubled the effect. "I don't want to live in fear," she said, her hand cupping his neck as if to make sure his heart wouldn't start racing just from the mention of the emotion that had been instilled in him ever since he'd been little, but even her touch couldn't help when she was the one to bring it up. She just had to let it go, focus on the water and make it carry the pain of the wounds on his body away while her touch forced the fear to retreat all the way to the back of his mind where it practically didn't exist, swallowed by the dark chasm around. "I want to be free," Griffin said, as she grasped at his shoulder, her touch having the words sink into his skin and reach his heart, making it impossible to forget them. "With you," she added quickly with all the strength of the ocean that wore rocks away.

He drew her closer, leaning in to touch his forehead against hers and wrapping his arms around her in an embrace that he hoped could soothe the violent yearning in his soul. Of course he wanted to be free with her, wanted to be able to touch her whenever he wanted without the screaming panic in his mind that if he didn't do as his mothers wanted, they would take her away and it could be the last time he was touching her and feeling her love caressing him from all around as he was plunged deep into it. He wanted to be able to live and not simply exist in a state of constant fear. But the thought of losing her scared him infinitely more. He'd prefer to lose his Dragon Fire rather than her. It might be the element of life, but without her there was no life for him. Not after he'd gotten so used to her smiles and kisses that wove a bit more of her love into his being every time she gifted him with them.

"I would love nothing more," he said, moving a hand to stroke her cheek and feel her spill into him, "but I can't risk losing you," he pulled away, hating himself when his words forced her to harden and open her eyes for him to see the golden wasn't as shiny as it had been when his warmth had stoked her feelings. But his cowardice had always been stronger than his faith in himself.

"We can do it," Griffin said, letting go of him to cup his face with both hands and he grabbed on to her tighter not because he was afraid she'd let anything happen to him, but because he was afraid her own uncontrollable passion would whisk her away from him. "Together," Griffin said, the word dripping on his heart like honey in the sweetness of which he would gladly drown, tempting him again, but this time towards allowing her demise and he had to resist if he wanted to have any kind of future with her. "We're partners, fire and water working together, opposites melding into one whole," Griffin continued, pulling him even more into her and making his body relax when hers was pressed into him so closely. Her words reached deep into his mind, pulling forth the memories of all their victories and the feeling of invincibility he always felt when his magic tangled with hers and their souls danced together, causing him to open his grip and wrap his arms around her waist instead to keep any space from coming between them. And he could never be sure that that would always be the case while under his mothers' reign. "We can do everything when we're together," Griffin said, giving one last push even though he'd already jumped into her net, knowing she would catch him and hold on to him. Always.

He leaned in to kiss her and seal his promise to her that they'd be free to be together for the rest of eternity. Their breath mingled together and the traces of salt on hers that stayed there no matter how much honey she would put in her tea fueled his inner flames, making them burn away every last shadow of doubt trying to hide in his mind. There was no place for those when he was all filled with her faith in him and in the love they shared.

Griffin wrapped her arms around his neck and slowly pulled them under the surface of the lake, giving him time to panic if he needed to but he didn't. He had no reason to fear anything when she was with him–not water, and not his mothers–and that was proven as he felt oxygen rush into his lungs once the water covered them fully. Griffin's magic was sucking the oxygen out of it and giving it to the two of them instead which allowed them to kiss for as long as they wanted when they were underwater. And he allowed himself to sink into the endless love that was spilling from them and rippling through the water of the lake, making it vibrant with the element of life.

**To clarify: Griffin isn't a siren anymore but she still has magic and a lot of it is water-based. She can't sink and she can use her magic to suck out the oxygen from the water but only when she is completely submerged and has no other way of breathing. She can also transfer some of the oxygen she gets that way to Valtor which practically allows them to kiss for hours if they so feel the need (and they do ;)).**


End file.
